TO that Spirit, in the power of the living God of Heaven and Earth, I affirm; that there is an im­mortal Lilly sprang up, as also an eternal River flowing freely (without money or outward price) through the Nations; the Root of the one being as far out of your reach to destroy (though you do dig as deep as Hell) as the immense Fountain and everlasting Current of the other is out of your vultrous sight, which way to withhold from the heart and conscience of the truly thirsty: For our Testimony in the Light of Jesus, from that eternal Fountain, is power­ful and clear, and shall have its full and infallible effect, though now resisted by the whole seed of evil-doers to the utmost of their perishing strength; and the numberless and most immerciful Cruelties which you inflict upon the inno­cent People of God, are so far from depressing the everlasting Gospel which we preach, Us, or our faithful Testimony there­in and against your false ways and abominations, that it doth, & shall add life & growth to the truth of our for-ever blessed and most precious Cause, and cause your selves indellibly to be recorded to Posterity as you are, when the Name of the holy Witnesses to, & Martyrs for, the Truth of our God shall remain as a sweet-smelling savour, living for ever, though their Bodies die by your hands. And some of our very little ones [now living] shall rejoyce in their souls before the Lord God of their Fathers, that they were the off-spring of a Mar­tyr, or that their parents in any measure stood faithful to God in this your day of heavy Persecution. And that I am in the eternal sight of this, if my God think me worthy, I am ready to seal with my Blood, though my Sepulcher, for de­claring this Truth, should be on the Bridge and four Gates of your City.

[Page 4] And, as though that accursed womb of your bloody Ci­ties, to wit, Newgate▪ that now dismal Pest-house, were not big enough to devour the Sheep of Jesus your Saviour, in which, as Prisoners for the Truth, at least Forty of his in­nocent Lambs called Quakers have laid down their Lives (through, as is most like, the Pestilential infection of that place) since the Lord's just hand of Vengeance hath brought it upon these your Cities of many Whoredoms, as the be­ginning of their sorrows: Beside, about Sixty of the same Royal Seed and Fold, have been Prisoners till death in that one Goal since your Act against Conscience was made, also sealing their Testimony with their Blood, as became the Mar­tyrs of the Most High. And yet, as if all this innocent Blood, with the rest of your innumerable Imprisonments, Blows, and Bruises, unjust Fining, Praemuniring, Confiscating of Estates, making Widows and Fatherless, ruining Families, frequent shedding our Blood in your Streets and Canels, at our holy Meetings, &c. were not enough even to implore as it were Gods further Vengeance upon your heads, When as the Blood of one innocent man is fully able to overthrow a Nation, much more a hundred, two prophane superstitious and hypocritical Cities. you drag and drive from that your Goale of Newgate at one time, Besides at three other times very lately before you dragg'd out of that Goal, and in like manner forced on shipboard, eighteen inno­cent true men, called Qua­kers; whereof one of them, through your most savage usage, immediately as you had forced him on Ship­board fell down upon the deck, and soon after dyed. to the Water-side, and there force in­to a Barge, Boat, or Boats, Fifty four of the Servants of your Cre­ator, from thence hurry towards an old sorry rotten Ship, which was ordered to receive & trans­port them beyond the Seas, like Slaves and Vagabonds, for no other offence given to you, on their parts, but only serving the living God according to his most holy way: to which bad Vessel side these freeborn Innocents be­ing come, and not having free­dom in the Lord, at the com­mand of your Goalors and their [Page 5] Accomplices, voluntarily or actively to go in to the In which one among your selves (in no mean autho­rity) said, he would not sail to Gravesend in, to have her. Ship themselves, thereby to acknow­ledge a crime, or that criminal, which God, in the Law of his Christ our Redeemer, allows (to wit) their meeting often together to wait, & call upon his most holy Name in Spirit and Truth, without restriction of time, place or number; for obeying this Royal Law of God, conferr'd on the Universe in the Messias, our Immanuel, the absolute Supream and alone Head of our Church, and disobeying your Edict to the contrary, they are sentenced to Banishment; I say, because of this, with a good conscience, they could not voluntarily go into the Ship, and consent to their own unna­tural, aswel as unlawful, Banishment and Slavery. The Souldiers, and some of the superactive baser sort (of whom Paul complained) that were imployed by you to drive and hale the Innocent, like Sheep to your slaughter (who resisted them not) without tenderness or contrition, by way of scorn, cryed, Throw out the Tackle, throw out the Tackle, that we may hale up the Kings Goods: which accordingly they did, fasten­ing it about the Bodies of the Innocent, and so slung up into the Ship the Lambs of the living God, as they do Cattel and other Lading: who indeed, as found faithful (notwithstand­ing the derision of the Ishmaels of this age) are the good and peculiar Treasure of the KING of Kings, for whose sake earthly Kings and Rulers have, and again will be rebuked in the day of further Revelation of his most terrible Indignati­on, which hastens.

Being thus inhumanely, and utterly contrary to the Law of this Land, forced on Shipboard; their Lodging (such as it was) was appointed under a base low Deck, where they were ramm'd together like other Stowage; and this very bad Ship being bulgy, leaky, or the like, the Water came in upon them, and ran frequently under them where they lay: by which means, and the suffocatious heat that might arise through their being so cramb'd together (it's like) the Pestilence en­creased among them, whereof at least Twenty seven of the [Page 6] Bodies of these [so misused] fifty four are dead. And not­withstanding the Ship is yet unsailed, riding at anchor in the River of Thames, Gods just judgment having overtaken her Master, who was about three moneths-since clapt up in pri­son for debt, the Mate having left him and the Ship, several of the Mariners being dead of the Pestilence, others of them come away, whether convinced of the unlawfulness of their undertaking, I shall not here determine, having not spoken with the men face to face; but of this I am certainly enform­ed, That the more ruffinlier sort, who stayed behind, did, or threatned to fire Guns after them, when they left the Ship and came on Shore: this being put altogether, Viz. what has befallen the Ship-Master, his Mate leaving him, the death of several of the Mariners, and some of them for­saking the rest, the Ship as yet unable to sail, having been clear'd at the Custom-house about a Quarter of a year since; Who sees not the hand of God against these accursed under­takings? Yet so blind, or rather wilfully wicked you are, that I have not heard that any one, in considerable authority, hath so much as endeavoured that the rest of these, yet living Innocents, might be released from their, so unjust, cruel Bon­dage and Banishment; but on the contrary, I have heard some in their stiffneckedness blasphemously say, Cannot your God defend you from the Plague, in Prison, out of Prison, at Sea or Land? &c.

To such I plainly answer, as a living man yet upon the Earth; My God can preserve me if he please, and I do believe in my heart will, if it be for his glory, and that he hath any further service for me to do among ye; if not, his eternal will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven. And I am as fully assured, that if it had stood with his most holy will, and that in his uncompre­hensible wisdom he had seen it meet, to have made those In­nocents further or otherwise more eminently serviceable to Him, and his Truth upon the Earth, He could and would have delivered them out of your hands, or in your hands, under this your most vile usage, preserved them from your drinking their innocent bloud; but then, if not for this, and such like doings, how should the measure of your iniquities [Page 7] be filled up? However, we have not at any time preached or affirmed, that our outward bodies were immortal, but liable, for the confirmation of our immortal Testimony, even to suffer by your Spirit and Generation much outward misery, unnatural cruelties, death, and what not; as was our blessed Saviour, his holy Disciples and Followers by those Jews and Monarchs of Old, in whose dayes they appeared on the Earth; and they were as obnoxious and odious to their then Hierarchy & Monarchy as the right true Christian man, cal­led Quaker, is now to yours; and all your Jewish usage of us his now Disciples and Servants, we as really feel, as he and his did theirs. Nevertheless, were I sure to dye many deaths by your hands, whilst I continue in Gods fear, I cannot fear you, because you are so very wicked and unjust:

But,

And that it hath pleased the infinite wise God that in this common calamity, which is come upon the Nation because of your unparalleld abominations (and that no flesh may arise to glory in his sight) some of our bodies who have not sin'd with you, fall with, or rather by you, do not therefore rejoyce as the former Jews (uncircumcised in heart and ears) did, over Jesus the just one, and the then holy People that believed in his testimony; saying, That he was as one smitten or forsaken. He that hath saven others let him now save himself. And that his good Apostle was a perverter of their Laws; a sower of Sedititon; a turner of the world upside down, &c. I say, do not hereby stiffen your necks, nor strengthen your ungodly hands against the Lord and his Anointed, be­cause the outward Bodies of the Godly and Prophane dye a­like: for when they (the former Jews) thus drank innocent blood, and magnified themselves against the innocent and righteous, then loe their destruction was nigh; and behold yours slumbers not, and the dregs of the Cup, without mix­ture of pitty, you shall as surely drink at the hands of our God, as you now Torment, Banish, and drink the Bloud of [Page 8] us his People and Servants. And alas, poor animals, for what you can in the mean time do against our Rock, or us in him; You do but in your most impetuous wills fight with the wind, and in very great confusion beat the air of your own imaginations; for we know right well you are limited by him whose Seed you would limit. And I sensibly declare unto you, by the authority, and in the power of the living God, the Root of that Lilly or Vine from which we sprang up, into which by the grace of his Eternal Love we are ingrafted, and in which, through infinite mercy, we grow and prosper in the Lord, cannot be prevailed against; and in the end you will as surely feel and find it so, as ever you were born. For the Mountain of the House of our God, is, must, and shall be established upon the Top of all unholy Mountains what­soever. And have you not heard, and every since we were a People, we have carried our Lives in our hands? And is it not manifestly seen and known to all men now living in these Nations, who are not wilfully blind, that through the God of our Life that strengthens us, we have not valued our Liberties, outward Estates, Preferments, even Lives and all, to the death, in comparison of our Faithful Testimony for Gods immortal and most glorious Truth, before you, that now are, were in outward Power? And have we not in this your day of thrice woful and heavy Persecution, again and a­gain confirmed and sealed this our Testimony with our blood, and the purely offering up of all that hath been near and dear unto us as men? And is there not so much as one considerate considerable Gamaliel among you, to consider these things? However, let not the prophane, so much as think in their dark sensuality, who were never known of themselves, to conquer any thing, but themselves with Drink, Whordoms, Violences, Oathes, and such like Bestialities, to overcome us who believe and walk in the Light, who have taken up the Cross of Christ Jesus for our Armour, in which we sensibly feel the power of God leading to, and surrounding us in his salvation. Nay, nay, be it known unto you all, that do but so much as think or wish ill to Israel this day, there are among us who in the power of the Lamb are more than [Page 9] Conquerors over whatsoever it's possible for you to say, do, or think to do against us for Truth: and unto such a strange thing cannot befal, neither any evil tidings from you affright them, because we fear not as you fear, neither hope as you hope; for while we live, we love to serve our Creator, chu­sing gladly to obey the motions and commands of the Law of his Spirit, written in our hearts, rather than so much as taste of the pleasures, or rather bondage, of your not to be parallel­ed wickednesses, w ^ch shal last you but for a season (mark that) so that when he who gave us breath (creating us and you to serve and obey him) is pleased to call for our souls, stand­ing in his fear (out of your false fear, vain hope and glory) we are ready with joy and gladness to answer to his com­mand, who saith, Come ye blessed, enter into eternal rest, prepa­red for the Lambs of the fold, &c. But with the Swearer, Lyer, Whoremonger, Superstitious, Idolater, and ungodly pro­phane Persecutor of Gods Innocent Flock, it cannot be so; for they shall then dread (though they now make merry o­ver the Lords Witness and Witnesses) that most dreadful and irrevocable malediction, Go ye cursed; yea, when such come to dye, the Light of Christ Jesus (with which every man is enlightned that comes into the World) shall arise in the Conscience to the utter condemnation of all those who in their life-time have despised or disobeyed it. Then shall the betrayers of the Just, and hard-hearted imprisoners of the innocent to death, for obeying it, know what it is to be a Iudas or a Pharaoh: Then shall the worldly-wise and rich, with the false divining Hireling, their frontier and leader, who serpent-like, to save self, have bowed to, and even twisted about every green and dry tree, that in the deceit hath stood up, feel the Parable of Dives, and know that Laza­rus the poor, poor in Spirit, in the faithfulness, is the Seed that doth and must inherit.

Now if you be men, and would be deemed in any measure rational to posterity, for what you do, & have done against us, positively declare what's the evil these People called Qua­kers, as a people, have done, or if you have ought against them but for their worshipping the living God of Heaven and Earth, in Spirit, Truth, and Righteousness: nay farther, if [Page 10] they have left undone any thing that they ought to have done; in the Spirit of God, and according to the Scriptures of Truth, make it appear: for our souls delight to be, and are subject to the higher, or highest power: and in my heart I in­tend most willingly, and for conscience sake, actively to be obedient to every Ordinance of man, which is, or shall be made for the Lords sake; I say, by plain Scripture, command of Jesus our Lord, or pure example from his holy Apostles, detect our principle and practice if you can; and without supposition or false allegation, orderly set forth to the world what detriment we have brought upon the good People of these Nations, since it pleased the Lord first to raise us up therein; and also what the evil is that we have done you, who have thus spilt and drank our blood without Mercy. Have we done ought against you, except reprove you for your rending and damming, Superstition and Idolatry, prophane and un­manly, as well as antichristian Persecution, with the rest of your superabounding evils and uncleanesses, in which you wallow, that you might repent, amend your lives and be sa­ved? I say again, produce your charge against us under your hands, plainly and directly setting forth and declaring mat­ter of Fact only, without allegation, dubious supposition, or any manner of clandestine trick or intreague of State-Policy, dissonant to Scripture, or forreign to the matter; that it may be transmitted to the ends of the earth, or at least so far as your spirit hath traduced, or made odious, us, or our Prin­ciple; that all reasonable and unprejudiced people in the world, may judge whether it bear in it cause enough thus to kill us in your Coals and Holes, force and banish us out of our Nation, where of we are as free-born as your selves. And when you have thus manifestly, plainly and publickly emitted your charge into the world, then lay by your Swords, Clubs, Goals, and ungodly Laws, and bring forth your Priests also, (with whom, if not for whom you thus en­gage Soul and Body) and let them publickly, thorowly, and equally dispute your and their Religion, and what they can vive voce, face to face say, or rather prove against us, or our Principle in Religion, who in the Spirit of Truth serve and [Page 11] fear the Lord, by you called Quakers. I am sure, if they (your Priests) be spiritual men, or but so much as spiritually minded, it cannot be denyed on their parts: And this would be a good way to try Spirits, and for you and them to try and hear Truth, and be tryed by it (and true Religion is a Spiritual, not a State matter) and whoso is found in the Error, let the smooth stone of David be slang into their hearts by the hand of a holy man to convince, and the Sword of the Lord run through and through them, as his most holy Spirit shall give utterance. And if to that they will not sub­mit, leave it to the Lord of the Harvest; for further, or contrary to this, no Man, or Power upon Earth, hath Com­mission from Christ Jesus to act.

So consider well what Church you are of, and whose Ser­vants and Ministers you are, that instigate the Rulers (who are too apt of themselves) to imprison and hew down the Innocent with carnal swords, promp and help Parliaments to make Laws against us, move the inferiour Magistrates to execute them, and cause dissolute Souldiers to tear us out of our holy Meetings, from thence drag and drive us into your Goals and Dungeons, there to be kept till Banishment or Death; whereby (in the Curse) you rend assunder the endeared Husband from the tender and faithfull Wife, (whom God hath joyned together) dislocating the blessed Child from the righteous Parent, the faithful Servant from his honest Master, and calling the Master from the Servant, &c. If this be Christian or Apostolical, I know not what is Antichristian and Diabolical. Most certain I am, Precept from Christ, Example from his Apostles, or the least seem­ing vestage in any of their Writings for such doings you can­not pretend, and the right generous English Spirit abhors such Salvagism as Hell. Then in this matter who are you like, or to whom may I compare you but your selves? Ex­cept in that of your Oaths of Alleageance and Supreamacy, you run parallel with the Roman Episcopalians in the late Ma­rian Persecution, with the Sacrament of their Altar; the one they used as a Roman Gin against the then Martyrs, the o­ther you impose as an Antichristian Snare upon Us, the now [Page 12] obeyers of the true Christ, who saith, Swear not at all▪ &c. For often-times when neither your selves, your late made cruel Edicts, nor the Multitude, (who for the most part have been for you, against us) can raise seeming plausible mat­ter enough against the truly Innocent, to ensnare and incas­serate their persons, Then I have often seen and observed your last subterfuge to be, (viz.) O but will you take the Oath of Alleageance! and some­times it's, Will you take the Oaths of Alleagiance and Supremacy? For the denyal of both, or either, great are the numbers of us that have been imprisoned, even several to Death; and yet I have not known any Roman Catholick that hath suffered either Imprisonment, or so much as loss of Preferment [a­mong you] for refusing the latter, whenas they do acknowldge a for­reign Head, and he is but a man: and it is as well known that we Christians do, nor ever did acknow­ledge any other Head of our Church but CHRIST alone; so that if I were of an aggravating spirit, I might say, Why Us, and not the Pa­pists? But it's not my principle to irritate or stir up any against ano­ther to ease my self; but I feel who you favour and who you hate. when­as for pure Conscience­sake we who profess Chri­stianity, and are Christians indeed, as wel as in words, cannot, may not, dare not swear, by Heaven, Earth, Evangelists, or any other Oath whatsoever, because the promised Messiah, and performed Oath of God, of whom Oaths under the Law were a Type, hath commanded us in express words, But I say unto you, Swear not at all; but let your yea, be yea, and your nay, nay, &c. and his A­postle Iames saith, Above all things, my Brethren, swear not This could not be meant prophane swearing, for under the Law that was forbidden, viz. Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain; but Iudicial swearing was by the Law of Moses allowed.: So that be­ing absolutely comman­ded by the Son of God, and precautioned, or ra­ther confirmed by his good Apostle, whose in­dispensable Commands and Doctrine should be Catholick; however, to us that are not our own, but bought and re­redeemed [Page 13] with a price, even the Blood of our immaculate Lord, it sufficeth; and therefore we dare not, may not turn his immortal Law behind our backs, nor tread his most precious Blood under our feet. And I do believe in my heart, most of you cannot but know before-hand, even before you offer us an Oath, that it is our avowed Principle not to swear at all; and we dare not assume that unholy liber­ty, or accursed dispensation, to break that most sacred, most royal, and indispensible Law of our Redeemer; as many of you lately did for your ungodly ends, when against your Consciences, and against your earthly King, you sware, To be true and faithful to the Commonwealth, as it was then esta­blished, without King or House of Lords. Nay, with us it is no­thing so; for the truly Faithful most gladly suffer the loss of all, even to the Death, rather than against their Conscience break one iota of their KING of Kings Command; and he that wilfully breaks one, is guilty of all: even so he that is not faithful in a little, shall never be made a Ruler in much. So that I cannot say, for what you do against us, (as also against your own souls and consciences) as Christ said to the old Iews, You know not what you do: but I can truly say, You know not, or at least wisely consider not what will follow for these your most unreasonable outrages.

Indeed, most of our present Adversaries are men of Oaths, much addicted to Swearing and Cursing; for, and under which the good People of the Land do bitterly mourn, and they themselves shall howl, though at the present they trample under their feet, as a thing of nought, the Name of our God, imploring him often to damn and sink them; insulting over his Innocent Seed, plowing broad, deep and most inhumane furrows on the backs of his righteous People at their pleasure, contrary to all Law and good Reason: Not less than five or six thousand of us, cal­led Quakers, imprisoned at a time, since you called Episco­pal Protestants came into outward power.

Thus have you killed us all your day long, and expo­sed to outward ruine the Families of the Faithful in the [Page 14] Land, making many Widows, oppressing their Fatherless, even as it were chopping them and theirs in pieces, as flesh for your Cauldron, according to the Edict of your own hearts lust; yet in all this you are no Conquerours; and which is far worse, for all this you shall come to Iudgment: For the Mower saith, All flesh is grass; And, accursed is the man that trusteth in man, or maketh flesh his arm.

And, Lord, if what's already done, and in their hearts to do, be not enough to fill the measure up of those, who on thy holy People, for their pure Conscience, do impose. On me lay on thy pondrous weight, give me but strength to bear; permit them, Lord, my blood to drink, and flesh to tear. Yet, Lord, I'm not ith' hast, but on thy holy leisure cry, How long, how long! O Lord my God, most holy, just, and high. For, Lord, I know deliverance to thy Seed, nor evil to the City can be done, Good or Vengeance wrought thereon, but by thy holy self alone. Therefore freely, and with all my heart, the manner, way, and final disquisition of these things I leave to thee, my God, who art the King of Kings, transmuter and establisher of all things.